The sound of metal bits clacking around in the vacuum cleaner made my stomach drop. The earrings I had worn in rotation with a few of her other studs for the last year and a half were missing and now I … Continue reading
Treasures in Trash Bags
Tag Archives: hope
Lipstick Legacy
I have it now; this little blue mug that says “MOM” on it all uneven like it was mass printed and sold for last minute gift-buyers on Mother’s Day sometime in the 80s. Maybe my Dad got it for her … Continue reading
Why May is Grey
May is Brain Cancer Awareness Month. It’s probably also some other awareness month and there is probably a Donut Day or something wonderfully absurd in it’s mix. These things are arbitrary. May is no more or less affected by Brain … Continue reading
Evil, Chaos, and Seashells
I don’t remember what brought us there. I don’t remember if we’d had a fight or something had happened to her at work or something else, but I remember arriving to seagulls and salty air and watching her make her … Continue reading
Election Day 2016
Something will happen tomorrow. You’ll get up. You’ll do your thing. You’ll work or play or study. And the world will get herself around that sun. We’ll survive. And in America, we’ll have a new president. I went to a … Continue reading
Highest Hope
I gave birth to her on the floor of the Birth Center – right outside the tub where I thought I might die, where I hated her from a reserve of fury I didn’t know existed, where I’d cursed the … Continue reading
Darker Brother
Gabe picked up a copy of illustrated Langston Hughes because, presumabley, he likes to make me cry in front of my children. That boy looks like my Daddy! Why do you say that? Because his skin looks like my Daddy’s … Continue reading
Ten Seconds
“How’re you doing today?” I asked to be cordial with our 10 second encounter. He answered warmly, “I’m alive and breathing.” He said it as if he were wearing vacation clothes instead of a red vest with a name tag, as if … Continue reading
In The Likely Event that I Don’t Get a Yearly Update In the Mail
I didn’t get the Christmas New Year card out. Maybe I’ll squeeze it into the “Hey, we’re only a few days in and you know, life so it’s still acceptable for you to receive this” window. Probably not. I didn’t … Continue reading
Because God Doesn’t Always Make You Feel Better
Today I am done. Today the kids win. The cancer crap wins. The pregnancy wins. Today life gets to cackle at the mess she’s made me.
You win, life. I’m done.
Gabe brought up Heidegger (even though he was a Nazi) and not caring about the “them” so much and living more genuinely which is one of the things I think my spirit has been learning the last few years – one of the preparations God was forming for this time now.
And sometimes? Genuinely? I’m done. And I think God is meeting me here – in Done. I think Jesus is on the couch watching me cry and laugh and type out cuss words to my person and I think he’s nodding. Because I think he gets it.
I think he gets what it’s like to want to break plates even though it will accomplish nothing. I think he gets how it feels to be whined at and defied and publicly shamed by the human you grew and bore and sacrifice daily for. I think he gets feeling helpless and hopeful and frustrated and at peace all at the same time. I think he gets feeling defeated.
But I also think he knows things I don’t know. I also think he knows how all this will be okay. I think he knows what is happening from a big, broad view and a much smaller one than I can fathom. I think Jesus can nod – can cry and laugh and cuss (is it okay to imagine Jesus cussing?) along with me while a better story is being written right now. While the earth and all it includes is in the middle of it’s submission to his dream. I think Jesus knows how all of this can be.
And the really astounding thing that i just can’t get over? He’s letting me know stuff, too. Bit by bit I’m getting to see his light in dark places, being led by the hand into corners where joy grows like weeds you have to bend down to appreciate. With the patience of a good, good dad, he’s filling me in and letting me know how he does his job.
So I think there is room for mourning – for feeling the painful tension of living in a world not yet what it’s meant to be.
So today I’m there. And everything else wins. And I’m going to eat some cookies and feel the feels while they linger and nod with Jesus because he knows stuff.
